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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22605094">Mindscape</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/'>Anonymous</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>xxxHoLic, 幽☆遊☆白書 | YuYu Hakusho: Ghost Files</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossover, Gen, Shopkeeper Watanuki, Timeline What Timeline</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 16:07:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,786</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22605094</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Shopkeeper Watanuki happens upon a certain fox in a dream.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Anonymous</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Mindscape</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Re-posting a deleted work.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kimihiro Watanuki waited.</p><p>He sat on the edge of the veranda, looking out on the garden behind the shop. He lowered the pipe from his lips and let out a long exhale. He had been waiting awhile now. Still, he couldn’t find it in himself to mind the time. The customer would end up here whenever they were meant to arrive. That they were arriving in a dream was interesting, but it was nothing he hadn’t seen at least once beforehand in his tenure as the shopkeeper.</p><p>You could say dreams were something like Watanuki’s specialty. Over the years, he’d gotten pretty good at manipulating and interpreting them. He <em>willed</em>, and the smoke responded, shifting from formless haze into a swarm of tiny butterflies. Before he could stop himself, his hand reached after them, but they were too far to touch, and even if he could, in the end they were just smoke—and not even real smoke, at that.</p><p>The moon dimmed in the sky. </p><p>It was then that his customer decided to arrive.</p><p>Watanuki looked up from the fading butterflies and wiped away his expression gone downcast. He took another puff from the pipe and sat patiently as a crack opened in his dream. After a moment, it widened enough that he could see a glimpse of the other side—bamboo, maybe—before his customer stepped through.</p><p>They looked like an adult man—no, wait. He shouldn’t jump to conclusions. It might be a moot point anyway, since the ears on top of his guest’s head looked decidedly canine. They might not even have human genders. And if they did, it wasn’t like human gender was simple to begin with.</p><p>They were wearing a white robe, not unlike something you might see in a book on Ancient Rome. Most striking, however, were the creature’s golden eyes. They were so not because they were particularly beautiful, they weren’t, but because something about them seemed decidedly unkind. And they were trained on Watanuki.</p><p>The creature approached him with caution.</p><p>“This,” they said, looking around, “is a dream?”</p><p>“Yes.” Watanuki answered. “Mine to be exact. It appears you’ve wandered into it. Did it happen by accident, maybe?”</p><p>His guest <em>hmmed</em>, their lips tightening into a narrow line. They looked towards the garden before turning back to their host. “It’s been many years since I last walked in the world of dreams,” They answered. “I’d honestly forgotten I had the ability.”</p><p>Watanuki immediately felt a kind of kinship with this visitor. He too was much older than he looked, and, after a while, all the days seemed to bleed together. Heh, why just a few days ago, he’d found a bottle of wine in the cellar that he remembered buying not so long ago. It had aged thirty years. He wondered if he’d start getting that way about magic too eventually.</p><p>No, in the end, forgetting was something he couldn’t afford.</p><p>He was the shopkeeper. That was his duty.</p><p>The visitor noticed his silence but didn’t comment on it. Instead, they looked past Watanuki. “What sort of place is this, a sorcerer’s workshop? It gives off a strange feeling.”</p><p>“While you wouldn’t be wrong calling it that, most people know it as a place of business.” The Shopkeeper laughed a bit to himself. “I suppose I’ve been a bit rude not introducing myself to a customer right away.  I’m Kimihiro Watanuki. Welcome to my shop.”</p><p>“Shop?” they echoed. “What do you sell here?”</p><p>He brought the pipe to his lips. Let the smoke free. “This is a wish granting shop. I can grant anything you want if it’s within my power and provided you pay the right price.”</p><p>His customer went silent. Something in Watanuki’s words had upset them, and while there was no real physical reaction, the air around him took a dangerous edge. It wasn’t the undercurrent of anger he felt around Saya, but a violence that was cold, that screamed its owner would take his life without a second thought. Watanuki was sure the creature in front of him had, in fact, taken many lives. The feeling curled around him like a vine covered in thorns,</p><p>Then it was gone.</p><p> “Yoko,” Watanuki blinked. Confusion must have shown on his face because not long afterwards the stranger added, “It’s my name.”</p><p>From their tone, they clearly expected Watanuki to recognize it. <em>Yoko</em> wasn’t a name really. It was a species of Kitsune who had fallen away from Inari. <em>Yoko</em> were known mostly for mischief, but Watanuki didn’t think that was the point. Wherever they were from, they were so infamous that their face sprung to mind whenever <em>Yoko</em> was said. And Watanuki <em>still</em> didn’t know anything about this visitor which could mean a few things, but one was most likely.</p><p>“You’re from another world.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>Then the two were sitting, and Watanuki was explaining the infinite scope of parallel worlds to a Yoko who actually looked interested.  Little by little Yoko seemed to relax, the earlier danger fading away until it seemed like something Watanuki had imagined. He was a little surprised that the kitsune was taking this all so easily, but it seemed like they had something a little similar in the world he was from. As Watanuki finished talking, another silence settled over them. It was an easy silence, one not at all familiar.</p><p>“This dream,” Yoko eventually asked. He half-laid on the edge of the veranda, twisting a stem between his fingers. “It’s a memory, isn’t it?”</p><p>The shopkeeper couldn’t meet his eyes. “Not really. I mean—it’s based on how the shop looks in the real world. I mess with the physics of things a bit. That’s all.”</p><p>“Isn’t dreaming like that dangerous for practitioners?”</p><p>“Yeah, well,” Watanuki waved them off, “do as I say not as I do, and all that.”</p><p>It was dangerous. Dreams were hard to confuse with reality when they were fantastical. In order to dream at all, the mind had to accept a whole new logic, and even then, something too shocking or strange would make a normal person wake up. But a magician’s whole life was reality tinged with the fantastic. It edged a little too close to what Watanuki was doing here. Watanuki wasn’t really worried about getting lost, though. He had all the time in the world to make his way back eventually. And if people needed the shop, they would always find their way to the shopkeeper. Yoko here was a testament to that.</p><p>Which brought them to the matter at hand. “<em>Did</em> you need something from the shop?”</p><p>“Hmm?”</p><p>“No one comes here by accident,” the shopkeeper continued. He was certain Yoko had already put together his meaning but was being obtuse because it amused him. “Destiny brings them here. You’re here, so you must have a wish you want granted.”</p><p>They threw the stem into the grass. “I’m not sure I believe in anything like destiny.”</p><p>“Belief or no belief, you ended up here all the same. I’m still making the offer. If you could have any wish in the world, what would you ask for? And what would you be willing to pay?”</p><p>“Kimihiro Watanuki,” Yoko asked instead of answering, gold eyes meeting Watanuki’s own with a sideways glance. “Did your parents really name you April 1st?”</p><p>The mention of parents affected him more than he thought it would. Finding them was Syaoran’s quest not his—he rarely thought about them at all, these days, except for when he called. He wondered what they would think of him now. He had known them, if only for few brief moments.</p><p> “No,” was all he ended up saying. “They probably didn’t.”</p><p>Yoko caught the laugh before it could escape. “I thought it might be an act at first, but it’s true. You’re <em>far</em> too honest.”</p><p>“What—what are you talking about?”</p><p>A familiar outraged boiled in him, one he hadn’t really felt since the old days, eating lunch with Hinawari and Doumeki and…Yuuko. It had been decades, maybe even a century since then. Doumeki, Hinawari, Kohane. They were all gone. Doumeki’s grandson still came around, but, despite them looking so similar that Watanuki forgot sometimes, he wasn’t Doumeki. Everyone else was gone, and he was still here.</p><p>He would keep being here.</p><p>“I apologize for scaring you earlier.” Yoko said, jolting Watanuki from his thoughts.</p><p>“I was sure this was a trap.” They continued with an amused look. “It was all just too convenient, and that name seemed so fake. But reality doesn’t have to be realistic all the time, and since you were so honest, I’ll have to return the favor.”</p><p>The dream shifted in a way that felt wrong because it wasn’t Watanuki doing it. Yoko’s form seemed to blink between two appearances like someone flicking between two tv channels before it settled. When it did, they looked different. This new Yoko seemed more human, younger and more fragile looking with long red hair.  The ears on top of their head had vanished, and so had the robe. Instead, they wore a bright pink school uniform.</p><p>They looked down at it in surprise. “I’m wearing this in my dreams now?”</p><p>Watanuki’s school uniform hadn’t been so garish, but he got it.</p><p>The fox regarded him. “My name. It’s Kurama.”</p><p>“I didn’t mind the lie,” Watanuki said. “Giving your name away is dangerous.”</p><p>“I doubt I have much to worry about from you.”</p><p>Watanuki felt like he should feel insulted. Instead the shopkeeper sighed and said, “Your wish?”</p><p>Watanuki was getting tired of Kurama’s constant switches in mood. He was beginning to think that Yoko was a front entirely. Well, Kurama had in a way confirmed as such a moment ago, but it couldn’t be that simple. Whatever this wish was, Kurama hadn’t even wanted to mention it until they were a hundred percent sure they could trust him.</p><p>Kurama exhaled, long and deep. “Time.”</p><p>“Time?” Watanuki echoed. Rarely were these kinds of wishes simple. “More or Less?”</p><p>“More,” Kurama answered. “But not for me.”</p><p>“Is that within your power?”</p><p>Watanuki let the question hang between them. Time. The thing was, he probably was capable of the spell. He wasn’t as powerful as Yuuko, but time was a force with which he was intimately familiar. His paradoxical state even made it easier for him to manipulate in theory. But changing fate? His entire life was a testament to how slippery a slope that was.</p><p>“This person,” Watanuki had to ask. “They’re dying?”</p><p> “Yes. But she’s not supposed to be.” A dry laugh. “The perils of having a demon for a son.”</p><p>“You’ll have to explain.”</p><p>And explain he did. Kurama was an infamous demon bandit on his world. One of his heists had gone wrong, and, in trying to escape, he’d been gravely injured.  Desperate to survive, he abandoned his physical form, transferring his soul into the body of her unborn baby until he regained some of his former strength. However, overtime he had grown fond of his human mother. He wanted to stay with her. Which was when she became ill. </p><p>The fox wasn’t wrong in thinking that playing host to a demon for nine months and then living with him for years could negatively affect a human. But there could be other reasons for her decline. If Kurama had truly been dying when he possessed this woman—well, the life he gained must have come from <em>somewhere</em>. And Watanuki was sure that kind of bond couldn’t be forged one sided. Not to this extent.</p><p>No, somewhere along the way, Kurama’s mother had accepted the existence that replaced her son. Even if it was a choice made unconsciously, she had decided that he was worth saving, even if it came at a cost to herself. She must be strong woman to wish so strongly and pay a cost so high.</p><p>Watanuki smile was bittersweet.</p><p>If <em>she</em> were here, she’d probably be reprimanding him.</p><p>“More time,” said the shopkeeper. “Is that something your mother wants?”</p><p> “I doubt she desires death.”</p><p>“But she might have accepted it.”</p><p>“Well,” said Kurama. “I haven’t.”</p><p>But is your choice the one that matters here, Watanuki almost said, but the words caught in his throat. It was something Yuuko would say, he thought. Maybe. But they were a bit too cruel for him, and Kurama’s choice did matter. Shiori was his mother. If he could save her, this was a risk he had to take. They both knew that.</p><p>Still, somehow, Kurama seemed to hear what Watanuki hadn’t said. “I never said I was a good person.”</p><p>Watanuki remember the cold, the thorns against his skin. “Would someone evil really be sitting here bargaining for a human life?”</p><p>“Perhaps if she were <em>their</em> mother.” Kurama said, half-smiling.</p><p>“You must really love her.”</p><p>“I do.”</p><p>Watanuki stood from his spot, stretching out his arms. As Kurama looked on, he walked into the center of the garden. The moon had vanished from the sky, leaving the whole space in a night so dark it was like didn’t exist all. A new light shined from beneath Watanuki’s feet, the golden sun of his magic circle.</p><p>“The price?” asked Kurama.</p><p>Watanuki faced him. “You know there’s only one thing that can match a human life.”</p><p>Kurama laughed, dry and humorless. “And here I thought it’d be something difficult.”</p><p>Watanuki sighed.</p><p>“From the start,” Kurama continued. “I was willing to save her—even if it cost me my life.”</p><p>Watanuki held out his palm, and light formed into a mirror. His reflection gazed back at him from the surface, and he realized how cold his face looked. Did he have anyone left he would sacrifice for like this? There were his customers, Mokona, Syaoran—but Syaoran had Sakura. Mokona had the other Mokona. There was no one left for him. No one <em>here. </em></p><p>“On the night of the full moon,” Watanuki said. “Place that mirror in the light. A god will appear. Kagami deals in opposites, reflections. Tell it your situation, and it will grant your mother more time by stealing yours away. Just as you did to her.”</p><p>Kurama only looked down at the glass.</p><p>“Be careful,” Watanuki continued. “It’s an emotional god. He was a gift from a god in need of a favor. He was powerful enough to pay the price, but I think the original owner thought the thing was too much trouble to be bothered with. He might give you a tough time. But if you do the ritual right, the contract is magically binding.”</p><p>“Thank you,” Kurama said.</p><p>“Don’t.” He paused. “I am leading you to your death.”</p><p>“I’ve been alive a long time,” Kurama replied. “I knew it’d happen sooner or later.”</p><p>Kurama’s body started to fade. The deal was complete. There was no reason anymore for their dreams to be connected. Wherever he was, he was about to wake up. Watanuki wasn’t worried about the mirror. Kurama probably had enough power to carry it with him back to his world. If he didn’t, the shop would do it for him.</p><p>“Watanuki,” a voice called across the space.</p><p>Watanuki looked up.</p><p>Kurama was almost completely gone.</p><p>“You shouldn’t dwell in your memories too much,” he said. “You can carry them with you, but you can’t forget to go forward.”</p><p>His words echoed through the dark, and then Watanuki was alone. He stood there for a moment in the aftermath, wondering if he should remain in the dream any longer. He reached out with his power, but forming a new moon was harder than creating the first, or maybe he just didn’t have the energy anymore. It was only then that he realized, sometime during their conversation, he must have lost the pipe as well. He took one last look into the dark, trying to imagine a field of hazy butterflies.</p><p>Then he woke up.</p><p>He was sitting behind the shop, same place as he was in his dream. Early morning stained everything a cool blue, and the birds were singing the first few notes of their songs. Beside him was a three-quarters drank bottle of wine. He must have gotten drunk and fallen asleep here last night. That also explained the ratty blanket around his shoulders. The young Doumeki must have put it there when he stopped by yesterday, he would surely be back today to check on him.</p><p>Watanuki stood up, stretching sleep from his limbs. Mokona would be hollering about breakfast soon. There was no harm in getting started a bit earlier. Maybe he would even call Syaoran. The day was still young, after all. He might as well seize it.</p>
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